Product description

Product Description

Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) presents his electirfying horror MIMIC like you’ve never seen before in a visually stunning DIRECTOR’S CUT. Starring Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) and Josh Brolin (True Grit), MIMIC brings the epic battle between man and nature to life when a team of scientists discover that their experiment in genetic engineering has gone horribly awry. With the power to mimic and destroy its every predator and the threat of an entire city's destruction, their creation has taken on a horrifying life of its own.

Recut and presented with in-depth special features that take you inside the film, MIMIC: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT restores Guillermo Del Toro’s vision for this chilling modern cult classic.

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The more observant of you will have noticed a 3 disc 'collector's edition' being sold by Amazon alongside the 'director's cut'. This Italian 3 disc edition contains the theatrical edition on the first Blu-ray, the director's cut on the second Blu-ray and a third DVD disc containing some extras. The two Blu-rays containing the theatrical and director's cuts are the films and nothing more [with removable Italian subtitles]. Personally, I don't think the director's cut adds much to a film that was pretty good already. The great thing about this edition is you can choose which version you want too watch. If you're expecting the director's commentary from Del Toro then you need to buy the single disc Blu-ray director's cut. However, as mentioned before, there are a few interviews in SD on the third DVD. There are interviews with Charles Dutton [1 minute], Jeremy Northam [25 seconds], Josh Brolin [1 minute, 38 seconds], Mira Sorvino [1 minute], two interviews with director, Del Toro [3 minutes 25 seconds and 25 minutes ] and a few minutes of behind-the-scenes footage. As this is an Italian disc, it will start in Italian but there is the standard English soundtrack available. Unfortunately, there are no English subtitles on this 3 disc edition.

Mimic imitates previous creature features but fails to copy their innovation. Low budget horrors were of high saturation during the 90s, as directors attempt to blend CGI with prosthetics to enhance the quality of their films. From 'Tremors' to 'Alien: Resurrection', the combination of sci-fi and horror was particularly popular during this decade. So much so, that Del Toro's first foray into American cinema was exactly that with Mimic. An entomologist releases a species of insects to cull cockroaches that are carrying a disease, however years later these creatures have drastically evolved and are now killing humans. Dank, dark and gloomy, you know it's a Del Toro production when it features characters crawling in sticky residue. The germaphobes and entomophobes among you may feel repelled to watch this, with Del Toro not shying away from showcasing scenes of squeamish nature throughout the "Frankenstein"-like plot. Rubbing insect blood into skin, faces slowly being bitten off and plenty of legs crawling through abandoned subway stations. It relishes in the roots of its sub-genre, but that entertainment does not hold strong for long. The first act starts strong, with concise scientific exploration into the world of insects, featuring a glorious ant colony in the largest glass container I've seen. The narrative plants seeds, inevitably growing into a promising gruesome horror. That promise is shattered once the second act arrives as the pace stagnates almost entirely. Characters go wandering down into sewers or abandoned buildings, giant cockroach creature appears, minimal death sequence, rinse and repeat. The third act slowly picks up but rapidly wastes supporting characters as they are forgotten about or killed off, leaving the uninteresting characters alive. The environment never felt substantial or varying enough, as if the entire film was just a blur of dampness. It lacked memorability and frankly became sluggish. The empty scientific reasoning only adds to the stupid premise, but you roll with it. The serviceable acting and mediocre visual effects still makes this lesser horror watchable.

Dr. Susan Tyler is an entomologist, who along with her future husband Dr. Peter Mann have created a new breed of insect. There's a disease that's carried by cockroaches that's killing the children of Manhattan, so they've created a new breed of insect that secretes a fluid that kills cockroaches. They were designed to die off after one generation, but 3 years later they haven't died, they've mutated into giant sized insects that can mimic humans. It's now up to Susan, Peter, a few members of their team, a cop who had to act as a guide and a shoe shine worker whose son wandered off to stop them.

Mimic doesn't have any major stars, what it does have is a group of great actors who are here because of ability and not looks. Oscar winner Mira Sorvino is good as Susan, she shows a great range of emotions. Jeremy Northam is fine as her husband Peter, he did everything he had to do well without wowing me. Where Mimic is excellent is the supporting cast, there's Charles S. Dutton as Leonard the cop/reluctant guide. Oscar nominees Giancarlo Giannini and Josh Brolin give very good performances, and oscar winner F. Murray Abraham has a small role as Dr. Gates.

It was Guillermo Del Toro's first American movie as director, and his stylish, dark, creative imprint is all over it. Del Toro actually disowned the movie as he felt Bob Weinstein had interfered too much during filming, constantly coming to the set and insisting scenes be shot differently or even completely changed. This upset Del Toro enough that he didn't direct another film for 4 years, and that was the superb Devil's Backbone made back at home in Mexico/Spain where he had total creative control. He did return to America again the year later to direct Blade 2, the best of the series and the Hellboy films.

After the opening 40-45 minutes, the rest of the movie is set underground, beneath a subway station. Any fans of Del Toro will be used to the underground scenes as they appear in most of his movies, the visuals are superb and the dark tunnels are creepy and atmospheric. The giant insects are kept in the shadows for most of the movie, we do get to see them more clearly as the movie reaches it's climax. The $25,000,000 budget ensured that the effects were going to be good, and there's some fantastic set pieces. There's no nudity and very little gore, but there are several gross scenes involving the insects.

Mimic is a really good creature feature, essentially a very intelligent, expensive, well acted, brilliantly directed b-movie. I wouldn't hesitate to give Mimic 4 stars, but i'm not just reviewing the film, i'm reviewing the dvd. The picture quality is pretty good, but there's no extras at all. There's English subtitles only, and scene selection. The complete lack of extras is probably because Del Toro disowned it, his movies normally have excellent extras and i'd have loved a commentary for Mimic.

Mimic is similar in ways to The Relic that was made in the same year, studios quite often release very similar films around the same time that seem like the same script reworked. The Relic and Mimic both 1997. Armageddon and Deep Impact both 1998. The Illusionist and The Prestige both 2006. Mission To Mars and Red Planet both 2000. Dante's Peak and Volcano both 1997. Mimic is better than The Relic, but that's well worth checking out if you enjoy this.

I have seen this film before and I like it. The director, Guillermo del Toro is a master director of horror films. However, the main reason for me purchasing this blu-ray is to view the film in high definition and man I was not disappointed. The quality of the blu-ray is excellent and well worth it. The picture image and sound is very good. A good buy at a good price.